General News 2009

The Youth Grand Prix started after the 2008 London Open. After the BYGC, which counts double points,
50 young players had played in a tournament. Michael Webster increased his lead at the British
Go Congress. At the UK GO Challenge the top 4 players all scored 80 points. After the Northern
Matthew Hathrell was in the lead and increased it with a trip to Cornwall and Swindon.
In all 86 children took part in the YGP. It ended with London, but none of the top places changed:

After the Coventry and Bracknell events, Tony Atkins was leading, but then the long
events started with the Scottish Open scoring 6, Durham 5 and Barmouth 5 for defending champion Yohei Negi. Matthew Macfadyen won Swindon and Shrewsbury to move into second.
Matthew then won the Wessex and MK to go top, but Yohei evened the score at the
Three Peaks. After London:

Council November 2009

There was a meeting of BGA Council on 22nd November 2009.

Winton Capital are again sponsoring the BGA, as announced in the
British Go Journal 149. They have provided funding of £11,000 which
will be used for youth development, supporting the London Open,
funding travel for a representative to the World Amateur Go Congress
and continuing the programme of training events. Council thank Winton
Capital for their continued support.

A current priority is the development of Youth Go, and Council spent
some time discussing a strategy for youth development. In 2010 we will
be beginning a new programme of introducing Go in schools and youth
clubs, providing books, equipment and support for volunteers. Council
have set aside a budget of £1,000 for this programme, and there will
shortly be an application form on the web site to allow schools to
apply for funding. Council noted that in the longer term it is more
effective to attract teachers to Go, rather than children. We will be
contacting schools which have previously taken part in BGA activities
to let them know about this programme, and we encourage members to let
their local schools, teachers and youth clubs know about it.

Council discussed the online league tournament. The league is now well
underway, the number of teams being well above expectations. Council
acknowledge in particular the hard work John Collins and Sandy Taylor
have put into making the league happen, and thank them for their
contribution.

Council has agreed to extend the qualification period for the
Candidates' tournament to 31st March, and will be inviting
participants to provide feedback on the current structure of the
tournament. It also discussed and agreed to encourage organisers to
hold Class A events where possible.

The results of the membership retention survey were discussed. The
main conclusion of the survey was that the BGA should prioritise
making joining and renewal as easy as possible. More details of the
survey results will be given in BGJ 150. A project has begun to develop a
new membership management system, based on "CiviCRM", with one goal in
particular being to make it easy to join and renew online.

Council discussed progress and feedback on the three month membership
trial. A small number of people have signed up under this scheme at
tournaments throughout October and November, some of whom have chosen
to join as full members. Following feedback, under 18s will not be
asked to pay the additional £5 entry fees.

Several other items relating to the day-to-day management of the BGA
were discussed.

This is a team-based Go league designed to be played mainly on-line. The purpose is to
encourage interaction between players in different areas of the country and to encourage on-line play
amongst BGA members. Up to early December, Cambridge had won two matches 3-0 to go top of
Division 1 (against St Albans GC and Durham Team Awesome). In Division 2 Cornish Rogues and
Newcastle were joint top, having beaten Aston and Chester A, and Aston and Glasgow, respectively.
Divisions 3 and 4 were still getting underway.

The BGA Council is pleased to announce that we have accepted an offer from the GoGoD team of
T Mark Hall (Honorary Vice-President of the BGA) and John Fairbairn to sponsor the trophy for our
On-Line Team League. They will be providing a trophy, to be called the GoGoD Shield, for the winner
of Division 1 and in addition will be donating three copies of the GoGoD Database and Encyclopaedia
to the Division 1 winning teams for the first 5 years.

Andrew Grant

Andrew Grant died in his sleep early on Monday morning 26th October.
He had been suffering from cystic fibrosis, which had got much worse over the last couple of years, and was on the waiting list for a lung transplant. Had been in Milton Keynes Hospital for several weeks before his death, and although struggling just to breathe, he was still a formidable opponent over the Go board. In his last ever game he beat Fred Holroyd on 5 stones, and in his last game against Tim Hunt he found a fantastic tesuji sequence to make a ko to save a large group and win the game. The funeral was at Crownhill Crematorium, Milton Keynes, at 3:30 pm on Wednesday 4th November; 7 Go players attended.
At the Milton Keynes Go tournament over £100 was collected for Willen Hospice in Andrew's name.

Dave Strowlger

Dave Strowlger (born 1944) was a stalwart member of the Wanstead Go Club
for many years and a familiar figure on the London Go scene, having been both treasurer
of the CLGC and Wanstead. He died from lung cancer on 2nd October and will be missed
by those who knew him. Several Wanstead and London players attended the funeral.

The first game of the best of five title match between Matthew Macfadyen and Hui Wang
was held in Warwickshire on 26th July. The game was broadcast live on KGS from 10:00. It was won
by Matthew Macfadyen by resignation. The second game was played in Derby on 12th September.
It too was won by Matthew Macfadyen. The third game was played in Cambridge on 26th September.
It was a very close finish - the first game between the pair to be counted. Matthew Macfadyen,
playing white, won by 3.5 points. Thus Matthew Macfadyen retains the British Championship.

Council August 2009

There was a meeting of BGA Council on 15th August 2009.
Council discussed the possibility of 3 month memberships, and agreed
to go ahead from October 1st for a 6 month trial period. Non-members
who enter a tournament will now automatically become BGA members for 3
months, and receive at least one journal. Tournament directors will be
asked to increase the surcharge for non-members to £5 to cover this,
though the tournament levy will not increase during the trial period.
BGA officials will be available at tournaments to help with the
additional administration.

There was some discussion of the selection policy for the next World
Mind Sports Games, which may be in 2011. It was agreed that the
selection would be based on players included in the BGA rating list at
the time of selection - this means, for example, in the event of a
WMSG in 2011, that anyone who has played in a tournament after March
2009 will be eligible.

The book stocking policy was discussed and revised. Previously, the
book shop has stocked every book available in English, but the number
of books available has made this impractical. In future, the decision
on whether to stock new items will be made by the book seller, in
consultation with the Book seller's committee, based on the likely
sales, value for money, quality, and whether it duplicates the content
of any other recommended titles.

The status of the online league was discussed, and it was agreed that
it must be up and running by October.

Finally, some topics were discussed which had been raised in
discussion on gotalk. These included:

The EGF anti-doping policy. Further discussion was deferred since
the EGF AGM minutes had not been published at the time of the
meeting.

The rules for the British Championship. Council decided not to
change the format or qualification rules since there has been no
feedback from anyone involved or likely to be involved.

Full minutes are available from the Secretary on request.

Council May 2009

There was a meeting of BGA Council on 9th May 2009. The main topics
discussed were the decline in membership numbers, player development,
and the rating system. Additionally, Joss Wright was co-opted onto
Council and will continue working on the new inter-club league which
is planned to begin this autumn. The accounts are still being audited,
but it is planned to hold an EGM to approve them at the Swindon
Tournament (20th September).

Toby Manning reported on the recent training events in Chester and
Edinburgh, which were both considered a success and received positive
feedback. He also reported on plans for future events, including a
strong players' teaching day with Guo Juan, to be held in early July,
and further training days for kyu players in Cambridge, the East
Midlands, the south coast and possibly Cornwall.

Graham Philips is co-ordinating this year's Shodan Challenge and hopes
to have it up and running shortly. More volunteers to be mentors,
especially dan level players, will be very welcome.

Council continues to be concerned at the fall in BGA membership
numbers, and there was a long discussion of what we can do to recruit
new members, and retain existing members. There were a few suggestions
made, including asking club secretaries to encourage members to join,
sending publicity to clubs, and emphasising that part of the BGA's
role is to support an infrastructure for all Go players in Britain,
not just to provide benefits for individuals. One concrete suggestion
was to increase the tournament levy for non-members, but include a 3
month membership as part of this. We are investigating whether this is
practical.

We are undertaking some research as to whether the fall is consistent
with other similar organisations in the UK and other Go organisations
in Europe. More importantly, we are going to contact a large sample of
recent non-renewals with a structured interview to try to determine
why we are losing members. We expect this to lead to changes in what
we do and how we do it.

There was also a long discussion of the EGF rating system, and how the
BGA interprets it - currently BGA ratings are determined by
calculating the rating of the average shodan. It is generally felt
that there is some deflation in the system (average shodan was at
2100, now it is 2034, but we don't believe the average shodan is any
weaker now). This is a complex problem, and one result is that some
rapidly improving players are undergraded. We'd therefore like to
encourage rapidly improving kyu players to consider promoting
themselves by two stones or more (when justified), rather than just
one. This will introduce points into the system more quickly, and we
hope lead to more accurate ratings for everyone. We'll be keeping an
eye on this, and you'll be hearing more about it from Geoff later.

Toby Manning's draft paper on Sponsorship was discussed and some ideas
were taken forward for a subsequent meeting with Winton Capital
Management. The main ones were for a Professional Trainer (for a 3
month period), Bursaries to study Go in the Far East or for young
players to attend the European Go Congress and running more schools
seminars by Peter Wendes around the country.

There was also a little bit of discussion of roles and committee
structure - an up to date list of BGA Committees and Officials can
always be found on the BGA web site. There are some vacancies in
official roles, and volunteers to help with any aspect of the BGA are
always welcome. Even if there isn't a specific vacancy you think you
can fill, if there is anything you think you can do to help the BGA,
please do get in touch.

You can follow the BGA on Facebook, with 204 members at the meeting
time, and also on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/britgo), with 25
followers.

Full Council minutes are available to BGA members by writing to the
Secretary (secretary at britgo.org)

AGM 2009

At the BGA AGM in Chester on 04/04/09 reports were received from the officers
and committees regarding achievements in 2008 and plans for 2009.
Of special interest were the Shodan Challenge, ratings issues
and the large decline in membership numbers.
Ron Bell retired after three years as
President and Steve Bailey retired as Treasurer. Jon Diamond
and Simon Mader replaced them. Edwin Brady remained Secretary.
The new council members are Toby Manning, Xinyi Lu, Brian Brunswick,
Geoff Kaniuk and Graham Philips. As the annual accounts audit had not
been completed there will have to be a Special General Meeting at a
future tournament.

Stacey Points 2008-2009

With two events gone, Matthew Macfadyen shared the lead
with Jaeup Kim on 3. Then the long tournaments started, with the Scottish Open players
then leading the field. Durham evened things up a bit, followed by the Welsh and later Isle of Man.
After London and Maidenhead, it was a three-way tie, but Yohei got ahead at Fife. After the final event, the British, Yohei Negi from St. Andrews, was the clear winner:

Go on TV

In part one of "Games Britannia" (BBC4) on 07/12/09 a Go mat board was used to play the Saxon game Alea Evangelii. At the start of part two on 14/12/09, a few frames of two Go games
were shown.

On the quiz show "Eggheads" (BBC2) on 29/09/09, Barry Simmons and Chris Hughes
discussed whether Five Field Kono was a Korean spin-off from Go and hence a board game,
but finally incorrectly agreed with Kevin Ashman who thought it was a martial art.

A question on "The Weakest Link" (BBC1) on 06/05/08 (repeated 15/05/09): "What two letter word is the national board game of Japan
and an instruction to proceed?" Answer: "Yahtze????"